Instinct
by SatanicAsch
Summary: Naruto AU. Naruto is ganged up on and beaten as a 5 year old child. After being struck with amnesia, the Kyuubi steps in to raise the child away from humans. Follow his as he grows into a feral ninja. Pairings undecided.
1. Chapter 1

Ten years in the past-

"**HEY! Watch it, kid**", A loud voice rings through a seemingly empty area.

"Sorry...", A small blond-haired boy begins to sniffle, cuddling into the large orange tail that had saved him from falling to his death. "I'll be careful.."

"**You say that everytime, yet you continue to walk into the most dangerous places. You are lucky I am larger than this ravine**.", The monstrous orange-pelted fox barks as he brings the blond boy to its muzzle. "**A year has pasted since your memory loss and still can't manage to walk without falling! Such a pathetic child you are**."

The two walk over to a safer location. A large monster fox with nine, treacherous tails. As well as a boy, just over 6 years old with blonde hair, fiery red eyes, and three feral whisker markings on both side of his face.

The fox lowers him into a grassy field, many small rock formations rest in the grass. The beast settles himself into a large nearby cave, and watches the boy play on the stone.

"Hey Kurama? Why do you keep me around? You always complain about me..."

"**I have answered this before. Me and you are connected. You die, I die. And vice versa**."

"What does 'vice versa' mean?"

The fox grunts, and pulls the boy to him with a tail.

"Kurama, why do you always stay in caves or in the dark?"

"**Because I can be seen easier than you, and you do not want the humans who caused you the pain of memory loss coming back to get you, am I correct Naruto**?"

"How did I lose my memory again?"

"**Maybe I will tell you when you can walk without falling, kit**.", the fox smiles, pulling the boy closer to his face. However, recalling the memory causes him to grimace. Poor child..

Flash back in a flash back- whattt

Naruto slowly backs away as several drunken men surround him. Fear and confusion are the main emotion Kurama senses from the boy. This boy, his walking prison cell, but the only one that has shown kindness to him...

"Demon!"

"We haven't forgotten what you did to this village!"

"T-that wasn't m-me!", Naruto continues to back away until an empty Sake bottle hits him. He stumbles a bit and holds his arm, now injured from stray glass and inpact force. These men honestfully meant to harm him.

"Guys.. He is just a kid. Take it easy..", a younger male among them argues, however the other remain unfazed and glare at him.

The men continued to hit him, using old achohol bottles and splintering wood, breaking them against the young five-year old child.

After about 2 minutes, he comes running into the old gilded cage, bleeding and crying into a bright orange muzzle. Kurama places a tail around him and snarls. Naruto pushes himself closer to the conforting fur.

The fox stands, lifting Naruto up as well, and presses his massive, white claws on the cage door. The demon had gone so far as to call this boy his kit, and these men are harming him because of this! Unacceptable!

"**How dare you harm my kit**!", the voice growls out of Naruto. (Kyuubi-Though you can admit you have gotten slightly less tolerent of him as your "raised" him the past year. But your role as protector of the child stands, as a vow to yourself.)

As the hateful snarl of obscenities emit from the foxes jaws, the men stare fearfully as a smaller fox forms, modeling directly from the kyuubi, but with only a single tail. Orange fur spiking and rippling down his smaller physical form. The long singular tail whips around wildly over your newly unconcious container, who had passed out shortly before.

He make quick work of the men, leaving them dying on the pavement seems like an acceptable punishment. Kurama so desperately wanted to kill them at his own claws but there had been footsteps approching. The demon lifts Naruto onto its back, the form mustered just large enough to carry him without problem. As he run off you see another young man, with white hair walk rush out from the street corner, weapon drawn.

Kurama gently places Naruto down, and focuses on healing the nasty injures he had recieved. Leaving his much weaker physical form out, to watch.

After Naruto awakes, he questions the Kyuubi in broken speak patterns as to who he is, and where he his. Though upsetting to find out the boy had acquired anmesia, the beast thought it would be better. So the boy can forget his harmful past. Perhaps he can get Naruto to practice removing and replacing Kurama's seal, so he could train him and watch him.

-Flashback end

"Hey Kurama? What's a 'kit'?", Naruto asks, fiddling with a small stone.

"**A baby fox**."

"Why do you call me that? I'm not a fox!", He laughs, dropping the stone.

"A part of you is."

Naruto smiles and looks up at you.

'**Look at your son, Kushina**.', Kurama thinks to himself. '**You too, Minato**.'


	2. Chapter 2

Present day-

"Too slow! Haha~", A young man mocks, standing tall on a large fir tree. "Has age finally caughten' up on you, foxie fox?"

The adolescent grinned, looking over to a small, single-tailed orange fox leaping incredibly onto a lower branch to the boy. An annoyed expression clear on his animal features.

"**Shut your trap, kit.**", the fox echoed out, no mouth movement to convey the words. Just an echo and ethereal ring in the triumphant boy's head. "**You know for a fact that this form is slower than my actual might.**"

"Shut your trap. A win is a win! And if you think you are so much better in your big form, why not race me in that form, huh? Too scared I might actually win~!", the boy teased.

"**You know why I can not roam free! Don't act so mighty.**", The fox bellowed, its small physical form evaporating into a thick cloud of red chakra, and phases into the blonde boy's stomach, leaving a slightly too warm feelings on the boy's skin.

"I was messing with you, Kurama. No need to get testy. It hurts my head.", He state, jumping down the full length of the fir tree and landing without a hitch.

The kyuubi had taught him basic chakra skills such as running up trees and jumping down at the early age of 8 to catch birds for food. Speaking of bird, he would have to hunt or fish for some dinner for himself and Kurama later. Sensing these thoughts from the boy, Kurama spoke up, his voice nothing but a calling in the boy's mind.

"**Naruto, go fishing. I would like fish.**", Kurama ordered more than asked.

"Okay, okay. Any preference for what kind, so I know what stream to go to?", Naruto responded politely.

Naruto always did his best make his fox friend happy. The nine-tails had done so much for him, and he knew that. At first, during the harsh of his training, Naruto had been arrogant with his powers and constantly back talked his beastly companion. A mistake Naruto made was forceably pulling chakra from Kurama, resulting in a 3-tailed cloak that wanted nothing more than to destroy. Naruto was taught a lesson the hard way after that. On top of the pain from the cloak, the nine-tail continued to send annoying feedback from their shared link, giving him a pounding headache so bad he couldn't keep food down.

"**Nothing in particular.**", The fox gave.

Kurama was always great at stating his discomfort, in the most annoying ways possible. So Naruto tried hard to keep him content, a task he didn't mind doing.  
And with those thoughts, Naruto walked off to the nearest stream.

"Tension continues to raise with the Sand, Lord Hokage.", A unnamed masked man stated, his head low and body in a bowing position. "We have evidence that the Sand is preparing for War with the Leaf."

The man was just another member of the ANBU, assigned to spy on the Sand. He placed scroll filled with the information gathered on the 3rd Hokage's desk.  
The third opened the scrolled, reading through it with a frown pasted on his face, only growing deeper as he read further along.

"Distribute this information to the Konoha Council. Tell them I will be stopping by later. Around 6:30PM.", The Hokage sends the ANBU man off with the scroll.

The scroll arrives at the council not but 2 minutes from when the man left the Hokage's office. The man, Homura Mitokado, grabs the scroll and splays it out for him and Koharu Utatane to read.

"Lord Hokage will be here around six thirty.", The ANBU stated before flashing off, literally.

The council finish reading with a grimace.

"This is bad.", The elderly woman stated, nearly no emotion, besides irritation, in her voice.

"The Sand is preparing weapons. Evidence has been found to their jinchūriki is now trained for combat and will be a likely asset to there attack.", Homura said.

At this moment the Third Hokage walked in, settling down in front of the council.

"Indeed so.", Sarutobi followed up.

"What about the Chunin exams? We will be having Sand Genin participating, as well as Sand civilians to watch the battles. Is this not an obvious part of their plan?", Koharu speaks up.

"Perhaps, however we should not let them know of our suspicions."

The conversations continues, plans begin to formulate as the Elder's speak.

Naruto leans back happily, placing a hand on his full stomach. Kurama was laying in content as well. The pair of ferals had found a massive cave system that Kurama's full body could fit into, as he would plan to do in a moment, after Naruto had made sure the various paths of the caves where rigged with crude seals carved into stone.

And Naruto got up to do so, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow as he hard carved the unique seals into the dark walls. Man, he wishes he could steal an ink brush and do it that way. But that would mean going near humans, and if Kurama taught him one thing, it was that humans were untrustworthy. The blonde boy of 12 years had already figured out humans were somewhat involved in the loss of his memories. No matter how many times his foxly companion would tease him about it, he wasn't that dumb.

After the walls where seals, Kurama manifested his massive chakra out of the boy to form his full body. Really this was only half his size, losing his Yin half to Minato's death.

He stretched his heavy body, hand-like paws spread and a full yawn rattling the cave walls. The beast lays down with a heavy thud, shaking the cave some more.

"You're going to kill us both!", Naruto yelped, throwing his hand over his head, watching for imaginary falling stalagmites.

"**Stop overreacting**", The nine-tails scoffed, resting his head over his arms.

Naruto stamped out the remaining embers that had been used to cook their meal with slightly too large, worn-in boots. All the boys clothes where torn and unfit, his shirt took the brunt of everything.

Naruto had grown an attachment to the color orange, not to Kurama's suprise, and insisted upon waiting hours on end to steal an orange shirt from a clothes line. The orange shit was plain, no markings on it so the great fox really could not complain. After that the boy had on khaki capri-like pants, they went down to far and Naruto had to use an old, discovered rope to hold them up. Then the extremely overworked boots that interfered with the child's chakra's control during their tree training.

The fox curled his massive tails in, adjusting them as his blonde kit climb up and moved into a sleeping position.

The two where somewhere around the outskirts of the hidden rain, Kurama slowly moving them far has he can from the Leaf.


	3. Chapter 3: Commence

_**A/N: Ahaha, whoops, long time not see amirite? Sorry for the long wait and less than impressive chapter. I'm dead tired, and it's probably the WORST time for me to write. I also noticed a fudge'd up the timeline so i'll go back and fix that after I catch some Z's. I was also thinking of just keeping this story with no ships. Thoughts? Yes no? Sorry again, see you all in the next update.**_

* * *

"I'm tired.", Naruto shouted indignity to seemingly nothing.

The blonde boy was sitting on a tall branch of yet another fir-tree and was drenched to the bone in rain water. His now freezing cold clothing detaching and sticking to his skin with every move. The only thing keeping him warm was the constant flow at burning red chakra flowing threw him.

"**It's impossible for you to be tired with my chakra flowing through you.**", Kurama replied to the boy's whining, clearly annoyed.

The boy stopped for a second, thinking.

"I'm cold-", Naruto stated dramatically.

"**You can't be that either.**", The massive orange fox spoke, his large mental cage rattling.

"I'm-", Naruto was interrupted by his beastly companion.

"**Why can you not just admit that you are horribly lazy, and I am annoyed that you are my container**.", Kurama responded sharply, slapping a few of his tails into the water.

"Aw. You don't mean that, Foxie.", Naruto chuckled, amused at his beastly companion's annoyance.

"Why are we moving so much? We haven't stopped for like...36 hours.", The boy groaned.

"**It's only been 34 hours.**", The fox huffed. "**And because we haven't moved at all in the last few days, and I want us to keep on track.**"

Naruto wanted to protest, however he just got up and continued moving.

* * *

Kurama was extremely tempted just to jump out of his seal and carry the boy to their location. However his single tailed physical form was too small to carry him, and his massive full form was far to easy to notice.

The beast chakra could only do so much, the strain was still being placed on the boy. Kurama was only able to give so much without burning out his charge's chakra network, though Naruto's tolerance for the nine-tails power had for certain gone up within the years. During the child's early days, Kurama had to hide in full size because the child could not tolerate the mass of chakra re-fusing with him. Kurama had slowly worked to get the boy to master the art of forming and deforming his full godly mass.

The pair where heading to a territory unclaimed, that lies on the edge of the Sand. The land is only vast dry forest and holds only wildlife. Unfortunately, all the best paths to the area where heavily populated, resulting in a lot of trail and error while trying to move around. Neither of them had a map to check, going off of the occasionally tourist marker and Kurama's memory.

* * *

"The Sand has begun its trek to the Leaf for the Chunin Exams.", a white-haired jonin, Kakashi Hatake, spoke to the village leader.

"Thank you, Kakashi." The elderly leader spoke, shuffling around with various scrolls.

The jonin stood in silence while the Hokage signed and folded several official looking documents.

"How is that unorthodox team of yours doing?", Sarutobi asked absent-mindedly.

By unorthodox, he meant the lacking of a full team. There was a shortage of successful students, and Kakashi ended up with 2 charges rather and the usual 3. Not that the two weren't bad students, it was just a bit harder doing missions with the smaller unit.

Sakura Haruno, a highly intelligent konochi with very good potential. As well as Sasuke Uchiha, the "last" of the Uchiha blood. He was really the only reason the 2-man team was able to become a reality. His bloodline to valuable. The original plan was to place him on an ordinary team, and boot the remaining 2 stragglers. However some parents on the school board had heard, and spread the information to the other parents which caused a rather unpleasant uproar. "My kid passed the academy classes", "Each student in there is entitled to becoming a ninja", and so on. The whole ordeal settled after the unveiling of the odd 2 person team. Which by coincidence, Sasuke was placed on.

However, Sakura seemed to have a large crush on the Uchiha boy, who was clearly not interested in any relationships, or teamwork. This often became an annoyance and hindrance, leading the team to have average scores, rather than the top of board they very well could be in.

"Very well.", He stated, with some hesitation.

"Hm.", Was the elder man's response as he continued to shuffle about. "Are they entering the Chunin Exams?"

"I believe so. Both of them seemed eager enough. I'm confident that they'll both make it...", Kakashi trailed off.

* * *

In the Hidden Sand, an assortment of ninja file out of a room. The last to leave, was a standard team of 3 genin and a leading jounin. The leader, a man named Baki, a stern and dutiful expression plastered on his half-covered face. One of the genin, a boy named Kankuro, striding next to Baki, looking bored. The next was a girl, Temari, who was walking in front of the group. Lastly, lagging far behind the others and seemingly fine with that was a boy with an icy stoic mask metaphorically laying over his face, and clouding his black rimmed eyes.

"Commence."


End file.
